"Aaaaa!!!!" Ogden obviously started screaming just like any other would in his predicament. Actually, it would be weird if someone from a modern world wouldn't start screaming at the top of their lungs upon seeing a scary orc looking at them.
"Calm down man, calm down... Shut up or I will rip your throat!!!" said the Orc when he noticed Ogden had no intention of stopping.
Upon hearing the Orc's threat, being the average Joe he was, Ogden immediately shut up. Right now he was shivering like a newborn kitten.
But at the same time, his mind was working at full speed. He was trying to piece together what was going on with his limited information.
The conclusion he had arrived at was that after his death his soul had crossed over to another dimension and this world had orcs! If he wasn't so scared for his life right now this could have been a source of celebration.
After all, it would be a lie if he said he wasn't feeling honoured. As his experience as an author usually, such people ended up being people who were chosen to save the world but at the same time, he was feeling troubled. He didn't want the pressure of saving the world on his shoulders. Also shouldn't a beautiful goddess or a wise old man be granting him cheats right now? What was the scary orc?
"Good, I can see that you have finally decided to listen to me... somewhat. I am Zerem, your neighbour so let me officially welcome you to Underworld. I will now explain everything to you as brief as possible so I would be grateful if you keep your questions to yourself and ask them all at once when I am finished telling you the basics" Ogden nodded his head while shivering.
He was wrong. This was not a different world. This was the underworld, a place where dead soul went. That meant the orc in front of him must be some sort of warden meant to torture him!!
"Okay, first of all, we are in a place called Underworld but truth be told this place doesn't really have an official name. I just like calling it Underworld because this is the place we go to after death. Simple right? Oh, also when I said we I didn't mean every soul comes here after death. I meant 'us' two specifically. Are you with me so far?" Ogden nodded once again but his dumb face was screaming that he didn't understand and if anything he was even more confused but this wasn't the Orc's concern.
"Good! Now, as for the reason why I said 'we' specifically is because both of us possesses a unique constitution. It's something called 'Perpetual Reincarnation Physique'. Thanks to our special physique after we reincarnate we will keep all of our memories from our previous lives. Basically, we are freaks, cursed, blessed, lucky or whatever you want to name it from your position.
Normally, after death, a soul has to give up their memories for a new life but not us. We are above that limitation. We can reincarnate as many times as we want without paying any cost. Don't like your current life? Sure, no problem! Just commit suicide and go on with the next one as if nothing happened. But just like you might have noticed that's a problem in itself. Even if we want to die and end our lives we can't! Because death is not the end for us"
After saying that Orc took a glance at Ogden to see his thoughts but he didn't see any obvious change in his expression. He was looking as confused as always.
"That's why Underworld was created. A reincarnator like us, whose name I don't remember, created this place as a holiday resort. Before the creation of the underworld the moment we died we would open our eyes in the next life without any breaks. So after countless worlds, he was tired and he created this place. He wanted to stop his reincarnation all together or at least postpone it for as long as possible.
But what he didn't expect was there were other people like him. He wasn't alone. Because of his spell after their deaths, every reincarnator started to appear here and found out that there were people like them. They weren't finally alone. Of course, that was who knows how long ago. So the fact that you appeared here means that you are a 'perpetual reincarnator' like us"
Ogden looked in utter disbelief. This Orc spoke about everything like it was something trivial but none of the things he talked about were! This was just too much to take in all at once.
Now that Ogden knew the Orc didn't pose any danger to himself he glared at Zerem. As an author, Ogden knew how important exposition was but still there had to be a limit to it. If you go too far in revealing information it becomes info dump that every reader hates! They would just skimp through it rather than reading and then complain author was pulling BS after a piece of info he mentioned in info dump becomes important later on.
If this was a book he wrote Ogden would have gone over it very differently!
He would stop the exposition of Zerem at the mention of Underworld and then cut to his next life slowly revealing bits and pieces as a sort of flashback. Later on, we would find that rather than reincarnating MC would have spent time here as the disciples of other reincarnators and this was the reason why he was so op!
Or maybe he would kill off the MC abruptly and THEN mention he had infinite lives which would serve as a shock factor to keep the readers interested as they would never know if the MC would drop dead next page. Since he had infinite lives it was fine to abandon storylines and worlds as he saw fit which would keep the readers engaged. Then again it would lower the tension of the story as MC wouldn't really be attached to a world hence there wouldn't be anything to care about.
Anyway, the fact of the matter was this ORC was the worst guide ever!
"Why are you glaring at me that way? I can read your thoughts from the way you look at me. I earned the right to be your neighbour so even if you want to you change to another one!"
Zerem said while picking his nose nonchalantly.